There is no doubt that Chinese and Indian love open source just as others do. As I know, the major reason for most people in China who want to contribute but can not do is subsistence. We don't work for a paying job, we don't eat. That is the reason.

There is no doubt that Chinese and Indian love open source just as others do. As I know, the major reason for most people in China who want to contribute but can not do is subsistence. We don't work for a paying job, we don't eat. That is the reason.

Agreed. For those of you who would like deeper understanding into this reality, please check out the latest zeitgeist movie here: zeitgeist movie 3

I think this goes to show you how rare and special OSS contributors are. Give the thousand upon thousands of users for Hibernate or Spring, there are very few who contribute.

BTW, being a company that developers OSS software is a HUGE advantage. You already know the skill of your hires. THey already know the codebase. THey are highly motivated and have initiative. YOu can't ask for a better employee...

Current open source emerged as corporates ran dirty business(exploiting natural resources). Otherwise as such there is no significance of opensource as 99.99% of it is not science..

Rather these open source people should have done something like what Einstein or Fermi did like invention of new energy source..

This is not true. In its origins, computing was open. Closed and proprietary came later. Open means going back to its roots.

Maybe it's hard to make a living out of it, I guess, but there are many highly successful Free and Open Source projects which you seem to be dismissing too easily. Like most of the infrastructure of the internet, for example...

Without being too scientific, I would hazard a guess at saying that contributing to open source can come down to good old fashioned economics, human interests/motivation, and overall social culture.

Maybe this can best be qualified by an open source contributor from a Scandinavian country - but maybe life in the Scandinavian countries allow people to be more focussed on pursuing their personal interests, assuming most of the base necessities of life are taken care of in their environments, such as being able to access quality education, or being able to earn salaries that can take care of most of your needs in life without, having to work overtime like a dog.

According to the latest Zeitgeist movie, societies that are more equal, in terms of not having wide social stratifications as compared to others, tend to have a situation going where the citizens in those environments usually contribute more towards their overall social development freely. Plus there're other things, like less crimes, political problems/corruption, etc. as a result.

Elizabeth provided an answer voted as the best answer in this link that seems to paint a picture of life in Scandinavian countries where people don't like working long hours, prefer working jobs to make money for free time, prefer to spend time with their families, are not inclined to be wanting to be wealthy, where there is no wide wage gap differences based on the type of job you're in, and where people seem to be more interested in your interests and hobbies rather than what you do for a living. Seems in line with idea put forth about social equality and life problems caused by the monetary system according to the latest Zeitgeist movie.http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100313142831AAyJ9FS

So according to Maslow's Hierarachy of Needs Pyramid, it may be that most open source developers are functioning in environments that allow them to be closer to the top of the pyramid as opposed to the non open source contributors who may be functioning in environments that put them closer to the bottom of the pyramid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Think about what you'll be spending most of your creative time doing if all your physical life sustaining needs in life could be met without you having to work at least forty hours per week.

Why do people compare contributing to OSS project with working for free? this is simply not true. I develop a lot of open source code, and it is my work to do so.

All large corporations use open source as a big piece of the foundation of their software. Many developers in large corporations patch open source woftware _as part of their payed work_, but don't contribute back to the community. Why is that? Not contributing back must more be seen as a culture of using OSS as "free consultants".

The whole premise of this analysis is flawed and the results mean nothing. A person's surname does not in any way indicate where he or she lives. One of the names on the list was Jones. Jones is a Welsh name. It's also one of the most common names in the US. Another name on the list is Janssens. It could be Dutch, given that Jansen, and derivatives thereof, is the most common surname in The Netherlands. On the other hand, I went to school with a kid named Janssens in Indiana, so this person could be a Hoosier instead of a Nederlander. Analyzing why Scandanavians contribute the most to open source is pointless because there is nothing in this "study" that indicates that this is the case.

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